[01/04] A Prelude to Number Six?
title. A Prelude to Number Six?
pairing. akame (je)
rating. r
summary. kame is a photographer who's immersed in his work and himself. jin is an up-and-coming solo artist whose face no one has seen. one behind the lens, one in front; two very different views of the world.
author's note. dramatic au. thanks to snowqueenofhoth for beta'ing this once, twice, thrice, and occasionally more. she even made sure that the title and summary were acceptable. and she made sure that i didn't quit halfway through or a quarter of the way through or almost at the end and. asdfkjfa. thank you. thank you thank you thank you. to everyone else, please enjoi!
word count. 05610 (overall: 17990)
Kamenashi Kazuya is wary of relationships. He is hesitant of commitment, hesitant of attachment, hesitant of liking someone until he notices peevish habits (and then everything goes downhill). Kamenashi Kazuya puts an inane amount of time into thoughts about relationships that he doesn't want to have.
That is not to say that Kame does not date or commit. He is twenty-three years old going on twenty-four and has had five steady relationships. Three girls and two boys. The first was a girl in high school. They dated for two years until graduation, when she went to some university in Kyoto while Kame stayed in Tokyo, and they both decided that long-distance relationships just weren't their thing.
A boy was his second-when Kame turned eighteen and lived away from his parents, new to the whole independence-in-a-big-city thing. It had lasted three months-until Kame vacationed with his partner for a week and decided that weekday habits of crossdressing were a little bit too weird and embarrassing to deal with.
Aki-san had, maybe, been Kame's first real love. She had been older-the daughter of a close family friend and someone who Kame had known before he began playing baseball. It was three years before their lives reached a fork in the road and neither of them wanted to negotiate and choose the other's route over their own.
Girl number three had been a fling-one who reminded him of Aki-san. And he didn't feel bad until two months later, when he still occasionally called her by the wrong name and she hadn't seemed to mind.
The last relationship lasted just shy of fourteen months. The man was a little older, a little more mature (age twenty-nine when they began dating), and Kame had been initially been reminded of Aki-san with him too-but it was different. It ended in an argument over Kame's distance and lack of interest, and he was still sulking (just a little bit) because maybe the reality of it all stabbed him through the heart.
Which is not to say that Kame is jaded and a hermit because of past relationships. He just, maybe, has heightened expectations. He likes to go out with friends and karaoke and shop. Occasionally, he goes to clubs (though not as much as when he went to university) and spends the night at a stranger's apartment. He just, maybe, has a life to take care of (he's almost twenty-four and not getting any younger) and a job to do (he's a photographer for the fashion magazine Shibui that he interned at during school) and undoubtedly, as one gets older, there is less time to play and more time to work.
He receives a text message: "Karaoke tonight? The usual place in Shibuya?"
"No, got a late shoot," he replies, which is mostly true. Mostly. Except, by late, he means the next morning at seven. He reasons that if he stays up until seven, then it is late. But he isn't going to.
Shit (he is a hermit).
---
Kame falls asleep on the couch at ten with a Chinese take-out container in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in the other. He wakes up at four to his cell phone alarm and leaves home at four-fifteen to go to the gym. He works out from four-thirty until six-thirty and then dashes to Starbucks for an espresso before sliding inconspicuously into the studio at an impressive six-fifty-nine.
"You're late," one of his assistants calls, catches him removing his bulky cream-colored parka. The woman is by his side in seconds, shoving a pile of papers into Kame's hands and he's nearly scalded by sloshing coffee in the process.
"It just turned seven!" Kame protests. He'd spent longer than he'd meant to at the gym, but it had been to make up for the Chinese take-out and the fact that he hadn't gone in about a week and a half. "I'm on time," he continues.
His assistant-Emi-rolls her eyes. "Seven for the subject. Six for the rest of us." She flicks his forehead.
"You don't need me to set up a few cameras and lights," Kame replies irritably. "The tech guys do that, don't they?" He waves a hand around. "It’s nothing involving rocket science." He nurses the cup of coffee between his left elbow and chest as he sifts through the paperwork.
He clicks his tongue. "'Jin'? Thirty-two pa-cover shoot?"
Emi flicks Kame in the forehead again and snatches his coffee before it spills all over his clothing-a black vest with vintage gold buttons and a crisp white dress shirt beneath it. "What's up with you these past few weeks? Normally you would have known everything about the subject by now-especially if it's someone who's important enough to get thirty-two pages and the cover shoot. You've been spacey ever since-" Kame cuts her off with a glare, and her pink lips contort into a frown before she abruptly changes the subject. "A cover shoot on the most popular solo male artist in Japan," she bites.
"Never heard of him."
"He's relatively new to the music scene. Came out about a year and a half ago." She holds up one finger. "His first single sold half a million copies. You’d think it was a fluke, right?" She smiles and holds up two fingers. "His second single sold four hundred thousand, but his latest-" She pauses. Kame finds himself listening closely because he knows that solo male artists just don't sell that much. Three fingers. "His latest single has sold seven hundred thousand in the last month-and it's still going strong. Potential to sell over a million by the end of this month. He's damn popular."
"We've never done a spread of him before," Kame says. "I'd remember. And I'm surprised-"
"It's his first."
"Excuse me?"
"His hook," Emi says, and pushes up lime green glasses frames with an index finger, "is that he's never been seen publicly nor done any real magazine photoshoots or interviews."
"Seriously? No live performances?"
"Seriously. And well, he's never been present on those music shows. They always play a VTR or connect to a studio via live feed, but it's not like you can ever see him. Oh, mysterious." She grins. "I have him on my cell phone though! I saw him walking into the dressing room!" Her eyes brighten and she pulls a hot pink DoCoMo phone from the back pocket of dark-washed skinny jeans. "Want to see?"
"I almost considered you to be a normal human being," Kame admonishes, lips curving upward as the two of them make their way to the camera equipment. “But you’re just a fangirl.”
Emi rolls her eyes. "He's really good-looking." Her grin widens. "Maybe he can make you forget about-"
Kame deigns her with a suffering glance.
"Right. He should be out of the dressing room soon." She smiles sweetly.
---
Kame enjoys photography. His first camera was old, dusty and heavy-a gift from his grandfather for his fourteenth birthday. It required that he expose the film himself, and he checked out several books at the local library to learn how to do it properly.
He found that he liked it about as much as he liked baseball (which was a lot).
So it was inevitable. The time that he didn't spend at the baseball fields was spent wandering through the streets and parks of Tokyo taking black-and-white photos of people in action. Of scenes and sights and things that he thought he'd want to remember. The brilliant sky on a cloudless day or the soft rustling of maple trees when the breeze was at its slightest.
Or maybe just a sleeping salaryman at the bus stop down the street from his childhood home.
So when he went to Hosei University, the baseball coaches were more than disappointed when he chose an internship at Shibui over trying out for the baseball team. A shake of the head, a little frown. So much talent going to waste.
Somewhere along the way, Kame reflects, photography decided to leave baseball behind and become something more than a simple pastime.
It's strange that Shibui, a fashion magazine, something of a glamour magazine even, is Kame's workplace. He’d always taken images of still-lifes and landscapes, subjects in their natural surroundings. But Kame had also developed a chic palette when it came to the aesthetics of human form and fashion, and he felt that instead of reacting to an image that he wanted to capture with photography, he was creating his very own.
At the tender age of twenty-three (nearly twenty-four), he is one of the main photographers for the magazine and calls his own shots.
Any layout that he works on is completely under his jurisdiction. No cropping, no cutting, no photoshopping without his approval.
To put it frankly, Kame prefer things candid, and if his success is any indication, he knows what he's doing.
---
Kame doesn't understand the artist's publicity stunt. When the door to the dressing room opens, he expects the man to be average-looking, perhaps dumpy and pot-bellied, no one special-someone who would profit by remaining mysterious in the heavily commercialized and image-oriented entertainment industry of Japan. But Emi is right, Kame concludes. This Jin figure is good-looking-effortlessly. Dark hair falls nearly to his shoulder and curls in large waves around his face. His eyes are round and dark, half-lidded and a little sleep-deprived. His lips-Kame is surprised that he doesn't notice them first-are full and a little pouty. When he turns, Kame notices the line of broad shoulders and lean legs through the suit. He's snapped from his admiring stupor when a woman taps Jin on the shoulder and gestures toward Kame before they both begin to walk in his direction.
"Akanishi-san, this is the photographer," the woman in the dark grey suit says. Her hair is straight and dark and pulled back in a bun. She is monochrome except for the slash of hot pink that makes up her eyeglass frames. Kame thinks that she must be his manager.
"Gucci," Kame says instantly, eyes flickering toward the woman's glasses. He smiles. "My assistant has them in a different color." The woman smiles back at him and Jin appears impressed. "Kamenashi Kazuya," Kame says, and bows, half-wet coppery red-blonde hair falling into his eyes. "It's a pleasure to be the first person to officially photograph you, Akanishi-san."
The man blinks and scratches his nose before allowing an embarrassed smile. "You can call me 'Jin', Kamenashi."
Kame smiles back. Jin’s grin is infectious and rather charming, something innocent and refreshing.
"Ah, Kamenashi-san, I mean," Jin catches his mistake, runs a hand through his hair. Kame sees the mole at the corner of his right eye.
"'Kame' is fine," he returns. "We're just finishing up with the equipment, so if you want to wait here-" he gestures to the area that they're standing in, with fold-up chairs and a long table of food, "-we'll be ready in about fifteen minutes."
"There’s so much food!" Jin laughs, and Kame quirks a thin eyebrow. "I mean," Jin says, catching the confused look in the other's eyes, "if I eat, I'm bound to get this suit dirty. And it's Zegna," he emphasizes the designer, "and new. And I don't want to mess up my first photoshoot by spilling coffee and muffin all over a two-hundred-and-fifty thousand yen suit."
"It'd make a funny candid shot," Kame comforts. He looks over to where Emi is, fighting with the tech guys over how to position the lights. "I have to make sure my assistant doesn't kill our lighting guys." He cocks his head in their direction and excuses himself from the client's company.
It is not until Kame begins walks over to Emi and lighting that he realizes that there is no one to trip over, no one holding expensive equipment to dodge. The set, he realizes, is conspicuously empty.
"Where is everyone?" He asks.
"Naturally," Emi says, looks up from finally deciding to adjust the back light herself, "since this is his first photoshoot and he's so goddamned popular, word gets around. So we're working with minimum staff at his request so as to not have some dumbass upload cell phone pictures onto a forum." She is very matter-of-fact.
Kame raises an eyebrow. "Didn't you-"
"I'm not showing anyone!" Emi cries, and Kame winces when her flailing movements cause the light to lurch and sway and threaten to fall atop an unassuming staff member.
---
Jin, Kame finds, is inherently photogenic. "Are you sure this is your first photoshoot?" He asks. "You're very good at it. A natural," he emphasizes, and lowers the camera from in front of his face to give the other man a smile. "Though, could you try tilting your chin forward a little bit?" Kame asks. "And look directly at me; move your hair out of your face."
"How am I good at this if you have to give me specific directions?" Jin laughs, and Kame makes sure to snap several photos.
"But they're little things," Kame says, continues to take pictures as he gives Jin directions to pose however he feels most comfortable. "You can take the suit jacket off if you want. There will probably be a few clothing changes before we're done today."
"So if I strip now, that just makes the job easier for the stylists?" Jin asks jokingly and loosens the thin, pale pink tie.
"Sit down in the chair-face the back-yeah-that's good." Kame watches Jin fold his arms across the back of the chair, lay his head down and close his eyes. "We could do a few shirtless shots if you wanted,” Kame says seriously, and Jin's head snaps up.
"No." He laughs. "No way. That would be so embarrassing."
---
They finish the shoot at eleven, but Kame thinks that something is missing. "How do you feel about candid shots?" He asks as the other prepares to leave the set and go to the dressing room. "Not here, I mean." He gestures to the set. "I mean outside. I think those would be nice," he says. "But if you just want to get out of here-I understand."
Jin blinks and looks to his manager who shrugs. "She normally just plays babysitter," he jokes, and throws the woman a wink. "But ah-yeah! That's cool. That's good." He grins. "A whole bunch of studio shots would be a little boring, right? Do you mind if we grab something to eat too? I'm starving, didn't eat at all this morning because I was nervous as hell."
"Breakfast is most important, isn't it?" Kame asks, and finds himself unconsciously walking Jin to the dressing room.
"Well what did you eat?" Jin asks. "I didn't see you eating anything."
Kame hesitates. "A cup of coffee," he admits.
"You're a huge hypocrite," Jin announces incredulously, laughing all the while, and Kame can't help but smile a little as he pretends to mumble poisonous comebacks beneath his breath.
---
They leave the studio a little before noon. The manager leaves Jin in Kame's hands with a, "Ah, you get to play babysitter now," and Kame snaps a picture with his Nikon D40 as Jin feigns a pout. There's an indignant yell and Kame secures the camera strap around his neck before Jin has the opportunity to grab it away.
"My pride and joy." Kame gestures to the camera. "Don’t touch it," he pauses dramatically, "Ever."
Jin nods, eyes wide, like he takes Kame’s threat to heart. “Eat first?" He asks. "I hope you aren't expecting something fancy," he says, and links his hands behind his head, puffs his cheeks and breathes the air out slowly as he looks in Kame's direction. "I kind of just want some ramen. Something easy and convenient after this morning. Besides, I know a little place nearby that's really good. Haven't been there in a while either."
"Lead the way," Kame says expectantly. They walk because Jin says that it isn't far. Four city blocks 'that way'. "So," Kame begins after several minutes of silence, pulls his oversized parka closer to his body. "You've got some weird reverse publicity going on." He laughs and looks over at the other, one eyebrow arched. "The work of your PR department or your own idea?"
"Are you going to sell this as an interview or something?” Jin asks, and quirks an eyebrow of his own. He shakes his head at Kame's alarmed expression and smiles wide. "I'm just kidding. I’m told that Shibui is famed for its professionalism, and Shibui’s representatives recommended you highly as the photographer for this shoot. Of course," he muses, "they probably also wanted to have my face’s debut to be with them. It's a business thing." He shrugs. "But, ah." He bites his lower lip and scratches his nose-a habit-and Kame snaps another photo dutifully. "Answering your question-it was a little bit of both. We were in the early stages of my first single and the record agency wanted to discuss what kind of image I wanted to portray." His smile is worn. "They thought I was joking when I said, 'My own.'” He pauses. “It's not as though I'm a complete slob who picks his nose or an obnoxious jackass who can't keep his mouth shut-they just thought that I was naive in believing that the public would see me-" He gestures toward his face. "-for my music when I'm-" He hesitates.
“Good-looking?” Kame finishes unconsciously.
Jin looks surprised and Kame feels uncomfortable. “Yeah,” Jin says. “That.”
There’s awkward silence before they stop at a street crossing and Jin suddenly whirls around to look at their surroundings. "We passed the restaurant, I think.” He sounds confused, and he scratches his nose again, embarrassed smile firmly in place as they backtrack past three shops until they're beside a homely restaurant front. Kame looks in the large window and sees dim lighting and customers who sit at the bar and converse with one another like they're regulars.
He doesn't notice that he's staring until Jin reaches for his sleeve and guides him inside the door. It's warm, and the other motions for Kame to sit in a booth beside the front window. Jin sits across from him. "So I suggested that we just not show them my face because I want to be known for my music," Jin says earnestly, "for my composition and voice. And I was twenty-four at the time and had it in my head that if I didn't succeed spectacularly, I was going to drop music as a career and become a salaryman." He grins wolfishly. Kame notices that he smiles a lot. "All or nothing." He laughs.
"Well, it worked,” Kame says and Jin places his order without hesitation. Kame takes a few more moments and the waitress promises their drinks will be out in a few minutes. "What I don't understand is why you've decided to go public now. You're doing well without a face, aren't you? Your mysteriousness is anything but a hindrance judging from your sales."
"I've wondered about it," Jin says, eyes flickering out the window and toward the busy street. "But I think it's better if I reveal myself before the novelty wears off and the media and paparazzi find out on their own who I am. And there's nothing to lose, right?" Jin folds his hands in front of him and presses his lips together, raises his shoulders in a slow shrug. "There's nothing to lose if my music has already proven itself, if I've already proven myself. There's no reason for the media to tell me that I've got fifteen minutes of fame because of my charm and good looks when for the last year and a half, they've only gotten a hold of the music I've given them, right?"
"What about the anonymity?" Kame can't keep himself from asking. "You know how tabloids and paparazzi are. They're notorious for invading personal space. As soon as everyone knows what you look like, they'll be watching your every move like a hawk." He has to bite his lip from continuing his thoughts, but Jin picks up his slack.
"They'll try to find out conspiracy theories as to why I've kept myself out of the media this long, huh?" Jin asks and rattles off his own larger-than-life ideas. "I'm actually a woman who had a sex change operation and I needed to wait until all of my surgery was done before I came forward. I'm a former worker in the red light district and didn't want to be seen. I'm a swinger who's known for having affairs and the mothers of my children are bound to say something when they find out that I'm not a deadbeat without money-" He looks at the bemused expression on Kame's face.
"You put too much thought into this.” Kame laughs. “You could write your own rumors, you know-sell them to tabloids too," Kame says, and Jin's mouth contorts into an expression of affected chagrin.
He recovers quickly though, and gives an indignant sniff as he scratches his nose. "Maybe I will.”
"No way." Kame takes a sip of his unsweetened iced tea. "You'll be fine." He sucks in a breath and tilts his head to the side as he gives a thoughtful look at Jin. Soft face, strong jaw line, gentle and determined.
"I'd better be. We're discussing my first album. I have songs written, composed-I wanted it to be ready for this winter, for right after this single, but singles right before albums don't sell as well, usually, and with my decision to 'reveal' myself, well, you know. We pushed the date back until this summer-unofficially, that is. Officially, I'm not working on an album," he babbles, "Sorry. I talk to anyone who listens-who I can talk to. A lot of everything's been kept under wraps and-ah, sorry," he says again, and a blush spills over his cheeks.
"I'm not really someone you have to impress," Kame says truthfully, "and personally, I think-I think now, what you have really sells. Sincerity and honesty, I mean. So being yourself is the best publicity. It's endearing, really." He fumbles over his words too. Kame isn't sure how to advise Jin, doesn't know if his own experiences allow him to help with Jin's job-related troubles.
"Thanks," Jin breathes, and his eyes light up when the ramen arrives.
Kame makes sure to take more photos and doesn't bat an eyelash when after he only eats half of his lunch, Jin eagerly offers to finish it for him.
They leave the warmth of the building and outside, a light snow falls. It's a quarter past one and Kame clicks his tongue. "I didn't know that it would snow today. It's the end of November," he says, and looks over at Jin as he rubs his hands together and blows warm air on them. "There's a park a couple of blocks away, so we can take a few more shots if we just walk through there on the way to the station." He begins to walk in the direction of the park with the other alongside him.
"Can I get your number?" Jin asks suddenly, pulls a sleek black phone edged in red from his pocket. "You really made today bearable for me," he says, and smiles wanly. "If you want to have lunch again sometime, I promise we won't have to talk about something as boring as my career." He laughs, and Kame tells him his phone number and email address before Jin does the same.
Kame also makes sure to take a photo of the other staring intently at the small screen of his cell phone with tiny crystals of snow gathering in his hair.
They part ways at Shibuya Station. Kame waves good-bye and is watching Jin's back disappear into the crowd when he receives a call from Emi. "What's going on?" He answers.
"Are you almost done?" She asks. "Are you going to bring him back to look at the shots? What about the candid ones?" She sounds rushed, a little hurried, and Kame remembers that he left her there to clean up the set with minimal staff and useless guys from tech.
"I'm done," Kame says, begins a hurried pace back toward the studio. "He had other obligations so I let him go at the station. I'm going to bring the candid shots back and we can look at the studio shots ourselves-or did you have plans for later today?" He asks.
"Oh, no. It's not that," Emi says, "This is the cover shoot, isn't it? I made sure that my whole day was free." She laughs. "I was just wondering. You'd been gone a couple of hours and I didn't think that the candid shots would take so long, so." Her voice ends with sharp punctuation and intake of breath.
"Do you want me to pick you something up at a convenience store?" Kame asks a little sorrowfully. He still feels guilty.
"No. I made one of the tech guys go get me something since they're absolutely useless at anything besides being errand boys." Kame can hear the loathing in her voice. "Anyway, the photograph editors need these shots as soon as possible-we're running a little close to the deadline for the photoshoot. The January issue is out in a couple of days and since this is the cover for the February issue, well, you know. The supervisors are getting a little pushy."
"Mmm." Kame bites his lip. "I'll be back in about fifteen minutes, then. I'm going to give Jin a call and ask him to look at the shots tomorrow."
"No problem," Emi says, and Kame thinks she sounds sweeter than normal. "When you come back, we need to have a talk, though."
"About how I've been acting lately? Sorry that there's been a lot of pressure put on y-"
"No, stupid. How was Jin?" Kame can see her secretive girly smirk in his head. "Did you like him? Did he like you? You know, when you guys were on the set, how he was looking at you-"
"Shouldn’t you be working?” Kame asks, and hangs up, feels more embarrassed than he should under the circumstances and his cheeks are aflame.
---
When Kame returns to the studio, Emi is already done developing the film and printing the digitals. The staff is cleaning the dark room equipment, and they leave to go to the main Shibui building to sift through the photographs.
"I took a look at them," Emi says, holds the tote bag with the photos close to her side. "They came out really nice. He's really photogenic," she says. "I'm surprised that he didn't take advantage of his looks sooner in his career. They would only help him."
"He said," Kame recalls, "that he wanted to be recognized for his work, not for his looks." They're beside HMV when he grabs the sleeve of Emi's wool coat to keep her from walking past. "Hold on a second, okay? I need to pick something up."
"His newest single?" Emi jostles Kame with her hip and whines when he pinches her arm.
"Shut up. I'm curious." He drags her into the store, conveniently finds all three of Jin's singles on a large rack near the cash registers.
"Will this be all?" The woman at the register asks sweetly, and Kame reaches into the back pocket of his red jeans for his wallet.
"Yeah."
"Gift for your girlfriend?" The woman makes small talk as she scans the CDs, eyes flickering in Emi's direction. "He's a really popular guy, isn't he?" she continues.
"All for her," Kame says convincingly, and winces when Emi's three-inch heel stabs the front of his right foot.
---
"He's really good-looking," Emi says for the umpteenth time. When they arrive at the Shibui building, they check in with the photography department executive and take over a conference room on the eighth floor, spreading the photos across the long table until there is no more visible space.
"How many do we have?" Kame asks, fingers the edge of a photo of Jin with his back to the camera and his head turned so that he looks over his shoulder-there are crinkles at the corner of his eyes and his teeth show in a boxy grin. He'd changed his outfit by then, and was wearing a pair of baggy olive cargo pants with classic orange Pumas. The white hoodie was up, and the dark wavy curls of hair that framed his face peaked out from beneath it. One hand lay on a cocked hip while the other's fingers were splayed in the typical "V".
Kame doesn't realize he's staring until Emi punches him in the shoulder. "Will you listen to me? I said there were about three hundred photos. And then I said that the one you were touching was cute and a keeper and you weren't listening because you had a silly little smile on your face." Her voice is an octave higher by the end of her statement.
"Shut up," Kame deadpans, takes the photo and tapes it to one of the windows. "So we should probably get down to like thirty of the studio shots and we can let them sift through the candid shots."
"If that's what you want," Emi says, and there's silence as they separate the good from the bad from the ugly. Unattractive lighting here, a strange angle there.
"He takes really good photos. He has a lot of energy," Kame tries to break the silence, meticulously sifts through the photos by outfit. "You can see it in a lot of these," he says. "Still surprised it's his first."
"You're a good photographer," Emi says bluntly. "You worked really well with him. He was really nervous beforehand, couldn't you tell? You really got him off his edge." She laughs. "Sometimes you do your job so effortlessly, I think you don't actually know what you're doing."
"Shut up," Kame says, and throws one of the bad photographs at her. "I know exactly what I'm doing."
Kame doesn't get home until ten that night, and he’s sitting in bed fiddling with his cell phone alarm when it buzzes in his hand-the ring tone is a poppy commercial jingle and the caller is Jin.
"Hello?"
"Kame? It's Jin. My manager called me and she wanted to know if I'd had a chance to look at the photos. But, you know, I'd completely forgotten about them." Jin laughs.
"Ah." Kame looks at the clock on the table beside his bed. It's nearly one in the morning. "Did you want to come over and look at them now?" He asks, "Because it's a little late," he says lamely.
"Oh!" It's more a sound of realization than anything else. "I didn't realize it was so late." The other sounds apologetic through the static-one of the annoyances of Kame's apartment is that his own cell phone doesn't get very good reception in it. "It'll be fine if I can take a look at them before the magazine starts printing, you know?" He says. "I probably should have waited until tomorrow and just gone through Shibui, but I had your number and I thought I'd make sure you hadn't given me a fake one or, you know, something." His voice slows at the end of the sentence. “Not that I thought you would do something like that-” he says hurriedly.
"It's my real number," Kame says softly, and his laughter is stifled by a yawn. "Sorry. I can show them to you sometime this week, if you'd like. When are you free?"
"Are you busy tomorrow night?" Jin asks. "I'm free from around seven. If you don't have any arrangements, we can go out to dinner."
Kame goes through his own mental calendar. There is a photoshoot arranged for an underground rock group the following morning, but he knows for a fact that the layout is less than ten pages and there would be another team taking care of photo development and selection. "That's fine," Kame says, pauses. "Do you want me to make plans or do you have someplace in mind?"
"Don't worry. I'll take care of that. Party of two?" Jin asks.
“Unless you’re inviting others,” Kame says. “Are you?” He asks.
“Oh, no. Just confirming. Unless you want to bring someone-who was your assistant-”
“Emi,” Kame says, and yawns again. “Her name is Emi. And she’ll probably be busy.” Kame isn’t really sure, but he doesn’t want to have to worry about contacting her.
"I'll send you directions tomorrow, then."
"It's a date," Kame says unconsciously, and mentally berates himself.
Jin just laughs, sounds a little tired. "Tomorrow, then. Or, later today." He laughs again. "Sorry that I called so late," he apologizes. "I didn't even realize it was past midnight. So-"
"It's okay," Kame says. "I'll see you tomorrow night." There's a strange silence. "And your photos turned out really well, in case you were wondering."
"Oh. Really? I'm glad! I was afraid they'd all be really terrible."
"They were really nice," Kame repeats. "Good night."
"Good night." And Kame wonders if Jin's husky pronunciation is his own imagination.
START // PART 02